The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp.
237-247, 1996
Pergamon
PI1 SO197-4556(96)00021-4
ART IN BOXES: AN EXPLORATION
ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN, MFA, MA*
Every man has a secret in him . . . I am dead and
risen again with the jeweled key of my last spiritual
casket. It is up to me now to open it. . . and its mystery
will emanate in a sky of great beauty.
Mallarme (l&%/1964)
My first discovery of making art in boxes was the
creation of a “peep box” for a book report in the third
grade. I was enthralled by the creation and the viewing
thereafter. A secret magic space with immensity and
intimacy. A complete and private world. Years later, my
experience with boxes became more somber. During my
son Zack’s prolonged and serious illness, I was haunted
by an image of a glass-doored cabinet that I never got
around to making. About two months after Zack’s death,
in a state of deepest grief and loss, another image of the
interior of the cabinet came to me. During the creation
and realization of that sculpture in a box, I felt alive for
the first time in years. During the subsequent difficult
years, the boxes I created proved to be extremely mean-
ingful to me both artistically and emotionally. I could
put some of my pain inside of them. They both helped
the work of grief and provided markers for my progress
through it.
In this paper I present my research’ into the nature
and meanings of containers in art and implications for
using boxes in art therapy. A brief review of the lit-
erature and research methods are given and the major
themes revealed in the data are discussed, with em-
phasis on the relationship of loss and creativity. For
the purposes of the study, the term “art in boxes” will
*Anna Kaufman is an art therapist working with AIDS patients and their families in the medical practice of Michael Scolaro, MD, and is also
in private practice in Santa Monica, California.
‘Adapted from part of the author’s (1994) thesis, Art in boxes: An exploration of meanings, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree Master of Arts in Marital and Family Therapy (Clinical Art Therapy) from Loyola Marymount University.
237
Copyright 0 1996 Else&x Science Ltd
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved
0197.4556/96 $15.00 + .OO
OF MEANINGS
refer to any work of art made in a three-dimensional
enclosed or partially enclosed space. A box may con-
tain only air, but it still has the function of contain-
ment and reaches beyond the two dimensional bound-
ary provided by a frame.
Background and Literature
In spite of the great popularity of the box form
among 20th-century artists, and the practically ubiq-
uitous use of self-boxes by art therapists and in art
therapy training programs across the country, surpris-
ingly little has actually been written about the mean-
ings and implications of this form. In the art therapy
literature, there is one article by Riley (1993) about
using a box and one by Junge (1985) about making a
book that discuss the properties of ritual, safety, trans-
formation and commemoration these containers pro-
vide for their clients.
In the dictionary, “box” leads to “contain/er,”
which is defined as “to hold within fixed limits; to
enclose; to hold” with synonyms “retain, have, keep,
comprehend, embrace and embody.” A space that
provides holding can only bring to mind Winnicott’s
(197 1) transitional or potential space between mother
and child and, later, between therapist and patient. A
second definition of box is “a limiting context,”
which leads to literature about therapeutic frame
(Siegelman, 1990), as well Langer’s (1953) discus-
sion of the importance of limits or frame to create the
symbolic and separate world of a piece of art. The last
238 ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN
definition in Webster’s, “embody,” relates to the ba-
sic notion of ourselves as containers with physical and
imaginary walls or boundaries. Enceinte, French for
pregnant, means walled in. Thus, an exploration of
boxes begins with the creation and protection of life
itself and proceeds eventually to the tombs, urns and
coffins at the end of life.
Bachelard (1964) wrote about the enclosures,
houses, boxes of the artist, although his point of de-
parture is poetry rather than sculpture, and makes the
connection between these objects and our inner loves:
“Every inch of secluded space in which we like to
hide or withdraw into ourselves is a symbol for the
imagination . . ” (p. 136). Drawers, chests, ward-
robes are described as “veritable organs of the secret
psychological life” (p. 78) intimate space that is not
just open to anybody. “An anthology devoted to
small boxes, such as chests and caskets would con-
stitute an important chapter in psychology . . the
need for secrecy, of an intuitive sense of hiding
places” (p. 81). He explored the meaning of the
opened and closed box:
From the moment a casket is opened, dialectics
no longer exist. The outside is effaced with one
stroke . the outside has no more meaning.
And quite paradoxically, even cubic dimensions
have no more meaning, for the reason that a
new dimension-the dimension of intimacy-
has just opened up . . This dimension can be an
infinite one. (pp. 85-86)
Method
I wanted to undertake my study in the spirit of
Bachelard (1964): that is “to listen to the poets” (p.
89) or objects, in this case, and to hear what boxes
would tell me in an open-ended manner. I also wanted
to do art-making myself. I chose a heuristic research
model that would both parallel and amplify my artistic
process. Heuristic method stresses personal signifi-
cance, connectedness, intuition and tacit understand-
ing. It is a method of research that is generated by a
total immersion in the process, analogous to the mak-
ing of a work of art:
A feeling of lostness and letting go pervades, a
kind of being wide open in surrender to the
thing itself, a recognition that one must relin-
quish control and be tumbled about with the
newness and drama of a searching focus that is
taking over life. (Douglas & Moustakas, 1985,
P. 47)
In keeping with heuristic methods, my own work,
process and reflections on the work and process were
the “instruments’ ’ of the research. Collecting data
consisted first of’making a sculpture titled Domine
Eis Requiem [give them or grant them rest], which has
elements of sound and light. I kept a journal during
the process, recording whatever feelings, thoughts and
associations came to mind after each period of work.
The second part consisted of systematically explicat-
ing ideas and themes during three viewings of the
finished piece. I also elicited main themes and ideas
from the journal. Next, I tried to come to some un-
derstanding of the major ideas and their relationship
to each other, eventually interpreting and conceptual-
izing the overarching theme as a journey from pre-
birth to death. Last, I related these main themes back
to their origins in the sculpture.
Results-Major Themes
Seven major themes and some sub-themes were
derived from analysis of the collected data. These
themes come out of the basic elements of art and
art-making that we utilize in art therapy: form (shape,
color, texture), process (techniques, decisions,
thoughts, emotional reactions) and content (inherent
or associated subject matter-concious and unconci-
ous). Reading through the material, I had a sense of an
unstated but essential overarching meaning: the pro-
cess of human development-the journey of life-an
odyssey of the self that includes body, psyche and
soul. The major themes revealed in the data fit within
this journey much like treasured bits of memorabilia
in a box or like the adventures of Odysseus within the
story of his journey back to home. Art-making occurs
throughout this journey and is the ultimate integrative
container for the different parts, as is the voice of
Homer for the Odyssey and as is the sensibility of the
artist who chooses, creates, paints and arranges the
objects in the box.
Art as Container for Dialectic and Means
of Unification
Description: Domine Eis Requiem. The first
theme, of dialectic, was derived from observation of
form and the nature of the dialectic was revealed via
content. Domine Eis Requiem (Figures 1-3) is 46” x
 ART IN BOXES 239

48” x 22”. A wooden frame or box holds two distinct more connected to the other two (Figure 2). There is
and different elements separated by a space in- also a contrast between the container-strong, sym-
between. The top consists of a hard, shiny, transparent metrical, neat, smooth wood and Plexiglas, easily
box that contains glistening bits, delicate glass and grasped or understood-and the contents-not or-
flower petals loosely scattered among soft clouds of dered, organic, fragile, non-symmetrical and emotion-
tulle that fill the space. The top glows with diffused ally messy. These opposite elements of both form and
pink lights. The contents are inaccessible to touch. content create a dialectic within the box.
The bottom, a hard bed with a skeletal semi-abstract Looking at the contents, the inherent meanings and
figure the size of a child, is open to touch and to space my associations to top and bottom, we learn more
in front, but is surrounded by a gauzy, semi- about this dialectic.
transparent tulle wall on three sides. The body of the
figure is open in places and reveals a skeleton made of
TOP Bottom
bundled twigs as well as a tiny heart-shaped box in the
heaven earth
chest cavity (Figure 3). Unlike the top, the elements
spirit body
are hard and frozen or bound in place. The in-between
peace, respite suffering
space is created by the other elements, but is unlike
sky ground
them and has a palpable presence of its own, like
light darkness
“thickened” air, due to the quality of the three gauze
eternity decay
walls. When the pink lights are on, filling the space
fantasy reality
and shining on the figure, the in-between space seems
art life
playful serious or grim
pleasurable painful
vulnerability protection, preservation

None of these can exist without their opposite.

They need each other to define themselves, just as our
first understanding of “self,” in infancy, is by dis-
covering that there is an “other.” More dialectics
follow all along the way: past/present, life/death, love/
loss and so forth. We also find paradox or a seeming
unification of the dialectic: in the womb, in transi-
tional object, in sacred space and ultimately in the art
piece, which can contain all these opposites and, with
its lights and music, can integrate them. An entry in
my journal also describes the piece as the very instant
before or at death when body and spirit actually sepa-
rate, but are still in proximity-a “frozen moment.”
It is important to notice from the above list how
many different dialectics or “meanings” the sculp-
ture can hold. During the process of making the fig-
ure, I decided to make it more abstract than originally
intended (by creating the skeleton out of twigs and
twine and allowing them to be visible). I found that
the piece had become far more expressive. In other
words, as the form moves away from the literal to the
abstract, it can hold or contain more meaning. There
is more space for metaphor. I believe that it is this
room for metaphor that makes art so powerful and art
therapy so effective. Langer mentioned this very
Figure 1. power: “The true power of the image lies in the fact
240 ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN
Figure
that it is an abstraction, a symbol, the bearer of an
idea” (19.53, p. 47).
Jung (1976) believed that dialectic or tension is the
source of energy in the psyche. “There is no balance,
no system of self-regulation, without opposition” (in
Jacobi, 1980, pp. 53-54). He felt that without tension
there is no life force, that we need the magnetic push
and pull of opposites. Not only can art contain dia-
lectic, it can contain more than one set of dialectics
simultaneously. And it contains them with all the rich-
ness that abstraction and metaphor have to offer. This
capacity to contain dialectic, therefore, provides us
with a powerful life force to use in responding to
death and suffering.
The music that is played during the viewing of the
piece is crucial to the emotional experience of sculp-
ture. The music, Requiem, by Rutter (198.5), is a dra-
matic, sacred plea for eternal rest that also sounds like
a lullaby. Music is able to permeate or melt the
boundaries between dialectics. It flows beyond edges
and cannot be contained by the box. It enters the space
of the figure in the sculpture and our internal space
2
simultaneously and so joins us to the piece. It melts
the boundaries between our feelings and the contain-
ers that we keep them in. It also can connect this
personal experience to a universal one. The light and
music transform the box into a transcendent, sacred
space extending into the room and around the ob-
server. Music and lights have long been used to create
sacred spaces-candles, oil lamps, stained glass win-
dows, chants, hymns, and so forth. Here they seem to
enable the piece to be less grounded, to float. The
floating quality of spiritual transcendence, where one
feels self becoming part of a larger whole, is not un-
like the paradox of the womb, a separate but oceanic
oneness.
Importance of In-Between Space
The space between top and bottom is essential to
the sculpture: too much and the elements lose their
connection, too little and the figure would seem suf-
focated, the right amount and the space provides ten-
sion between the figure and top and a potential for
 ART IN BOXES
Figure 3.
relationship. The space allows the figure choice to
enter the world of the top, via its eyes and imagina-
tion, or not. This space is similar to the space between
the containers of ourselves and others and what we
need for a successful relationship with others: a bal-
ance between disengagement and enmeshment. It also
recalls the “potential” or “play” space described by
Winnicott (1971) that allows for the creation of the
transitional object. Dreifuss-Kattan explained how art
pieces exist in in-between space:
The creative product is located in the space be-
tween spectator or audience and the artist. It is
a transitional object, a bridge between the inner
and outer worlds, which both artist and audi-
ence can cross together. In this the two become
dialectically united, reciprocal terms that imply
one another. (1990, p. 149)
In-between space relates to the previous discussion
about the power of art to contain meanings. It is the
241
very space away from real life that provides the room
for metaphor-the space between literal and abstract
that potentiates meaning. As Langer (1953) noted, a
successful work of art detaches itself from the rest of
the world; it creates an “otherness” from reality. But
it is still in proximity to the world. It is framed, either
two or three dimensionally, and thus set apart, but the
very frame or boundary is also the connection to the
world. In this sculpture, the in-between space is in-
separable from the top and the bottom, but has its own
presence. It provides us with the questions and an-
swers about relationship and integration of dialectics.
Because of the space, the whole means more than the
sum of its parts.
Boundaries Become Blurred in the Process of
Art-Making
This theme was the most repetitive one in the data,
revealed primarily through process. The figure was
consistently experienced as “real” emotionally, cre-
242 ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN
ating physical, conscious and unconscious (in the
form of dreams) reactions during its creation. Another
kind of boundary was blurred: I felt transported to
another time and place and experienced the grief and
anger from that time as if it were the present. The
content-that it represents a dying person-and the
form-its shape and scale being that of a real child-
also influenced this blurring or bridging of boundaries
between art and life or real and non-real.
So did medium and technique: working with my
hands on the clay felt much more like stroking a real
head than did carving on plaster with tools. However,
plaster becomes hot when it sets and thus: “I feel like
I’m touching a warm, feverish body . . even though
I know plaster gets warm, it was a shock.” (This and
other quotes are from my journal.)
Feelings do not distinguish between reality and art,
there and here, past and present. Artistic decisions are
based on this blurred reality, in particular the impetus
to box and protect: “This figure needs his box. How
cruel to leave him out totally in the open with his
misery, suffering and pain both visible and unallevi-
ated.” I found that I needed to keep the figure draped
when not working on it, both to protect the actual plaster
piece and the imagined “real” person. It is covered even
now, to “protect” the viewer from its disturbing pres-
ence-a blurring of reality that extends beyond process
to me experience of the finished product.
Most interesting to me is the paradox of how art
can simultaneously become “real” and yet be a re-
minder that it is not. From my journal: “How I’d like
to comfort this agonized soul on its hard bed . . , no
way to cuddle this hard, skeletal creature. Would that
I could turn him into a ‘real’ boy-like Pinocchio-
that I could hold in my arms.” And another entry: “I
once held his frail feverish little soft body and now I
handle sharp steel mesh. Will I be loving with the
plaster work?” This blurring of reality was so pow-
erful that there were many times when I had to push
away my emotional reactions in order to be able to
continue to work. Last, the art can stand for or contain
more than one meaning. In this sculpture, the figure is
my child, other suffering children, and is also myself
as a child, an artist and a mother, yet another form of
blurred boundaries.
The artwork is a transitional object that blurs
boundaries between internal and external reality, an
object that stands for more than one thing. The journal
revealed blending between love object/real person,
the memories of and feelings about the love object,
and the artwork itself. Feelings are transferred onto
the art piece and the art then contains the feelings. In
this sculpture, there are several levels of these con-
tainers. In fact, it is a veritable Matrushka [Russian
nesting dolls] of containers within containers. Starting
with the innermost: the small heart box contains real
ashes that also stand for feelings and memory. That
box is contained in the figure, which simultaneously
holds the artist’s feelings about the love object and
holds the multiple meanings of artist or self, love
object and other. The figure’s body, another kind of
container, is partially opened to reveal its vulnerable
twig skeleton with its various associations as well as
the heart box. The outer cabinet contains the figure
and the top box, which itself also contains meaning-
filled objects, including some more tiny plastic boxes,
and represents yet another reality. One of the sub-
themes revealed in the research is the frequent pres-
ence, perhaps necessity, in life and art of containers
within containers.
Art Made in Response to Suffering
Art is a container for feelings and a means of ex-
pressing them. It follows that the most difficult and
perhaps most powerful feelings that people endure
can call forth the making of equally powerful and
moving art. These are the feelings about loss, suffer-
ing and death. In my research, this theme was re-
vealed for the most part from content, the part of the
journal describing the inception of the sculpture from
a dream. In the dream I was faced with both the fact
of the vulnerability of the container of the body that
can suffer, die and decay, and my own powerlessness
to stop or prevent suffering and death
In the dream I am with my son, Zack (who was five
and a half years old when he died of AIDS). He is
tiny, frail and very sick. I am holding his fragile body
and taking him to a museum. We see a glowing dis-
play case filled with soft lights, tulle and pretty bits.
He loves it. I decide to build a display like the one we
have seen for him at home, above his bed. There is
also a conversation between us in which we both ac-
knowledge that he is dying. I am absolutely heartbro-
ken and weeping, but, at the thought of creating some-
thing beautiful for him, I become excited: I will build
a box out of my love for Zack, create a world for him
to look into, to be soothed and distracted from his
pain. I flee from my heartbreak into creativity. I can-
not stop his pain or death, but, as an artist (as well as
a loving mother), I can make something to distract
him from his suffering. It is significant that the beauty
 ART IN BOXES
of the case is removed from the viewer or the figure
by the glass. It is reached, like all art, via vision and
imagination. When one puts the story of the dream
together with the finished piece, it is easier to under-
stand how the figure in the sculpture can represent me
as well as my son.
In the dream the impetus for creation is an imme-
diate response to and flight from suffering and death.
It is the only way for the artist to contain, and both
avoid and deal with, the otherwise overpowering feel-
ings. The art provides (temporary) escape for the fig-
ure in the piece through gazing into the top and, for
the artist, by the creation itself. The process of making
the sculpture provides a place where intensity of feel-
ing can be experienced and contained. In the dream
my painful feelings are transformed into excitement
by the act of creation. My unbearable pain as a mother
powerless to help her son is healed by my effective-
ness as an artist. It is meaning in the face of non-
meaning. Creation of art is a life-affirming act in the
face of death. It is birth from ashes-both my son’s
literal ashes, now contained in a heart box in the fig-
ure, and the ashes of my life that felt meaningless
after his death.
Art Can Memorialize, Preserve
Following a trail of the above ashes, this next
theme is an outgrowth of the previous one. Here the
use of actual boxes becomes the most apparent. First,
looking at content and form together, I made many
associations to the piece that had to do with preser-
vation and “frozen” time:
l A tomb: a strong containing box for a body, pre-
serving and protecting for all time. A defense
against decay of body and of memory. (The Pyra-
mids are perhaps the most dramatic example of
this. Langer, 1953, called them “a womb of
earth”);
0 Snow White’s glass tomb. She rests in visible sus-
pended animation, not dead but not really alive.
(What a powerful image for anyone who has lost a
loved one and has a fantasy of death as an eternal
sweet sleep that could be reversed by a loving kiss);
l The ruins of Pompeii, bodies eternally frozen in the
moment of death;
0 The mummies of the catacombs in Mexico, wiz-
ened, but also preserved for eternity;
l An archeological excavation where negative spaces
that once held bones or objects are filled with form-
243
preserving plaster (the medium of the figure and
bed);
0 Display cases in a science museum where objects
are preserved for posterity and put behind glass for
protection;
l Religious reliquaries-elaborately decorated boxes
filled with a bit of human remains, a saint’s toe, for
example or piece of bone (this association obvi-
ously comes from the little heart box filled with
ashes);
0 Two dimensional, but also frozen moments: pho-
tographs of starving children in an African famine,
and of emaciated inmates in their bunks in a con-
centration camp;
l Last, when seen from the feet end, the sculpture is
reminiscent of many Renaissance images of the
foreshortened dead Christ: the most famous symbol
of suffering in Western civilization, the frozen mo-
ment before resurrection, used to preserve faith. (It
is interesting to note how one piece of art can bor-
row power and meaning from another.)
Perhaps because of the many associations above,
the sculpture has a frozen in time or “timeless” qual-
ity that crosses boundaries of past and present, there
and here, us and them-another way that art can blur
or permeate boundaries. In fact, it seems that the
boundaries between past, present and future are
blurred in this kind of art in container. Bachelard
explained:
The casket contains things that are unforget-
table, unforgettable for us, but also unforget-
table for those to whom we are going to give our
treasures. Here the past, the present and a future
are condensed. Thus, the casket is memory of
what is immemorial. (1964, p. 849)
As mortals, we must face our ultimate ineffectual-
ity to stop the process of dying. Even art and all our
sturdiest boxes cannot stop death. But art can help us
to retain our memories of our loved ones. To forget
would be the very worst loss of all, for memory is all
we have left. Art-making and container-making are
ways to “embalm” memory, to keep memory from
decomposing like the corpse. (At one point in the
journal, I asked myself if I were making a “sculptural
taxidermy” as a way to keep my son.) As shown in
the following quote from my journal, the art box saves
or preserves pain (feeling) in lieu of being able to
actually save my son:
244 ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN
Decision to use Zack’s ashes in the piece has
been made . . . Now I put my hand in a bag of
human ashes (just a few left) and pick out little
tiny fragments of bone to put into a tiny box. An
anguishing experience, evoking both memories
of a life and confusion about death: how can
these bits be all that is left of my son? How can
such energy, will, enthusiasm and love be re-
duced to pieces of bone and ash? Yet the im-
pulse to preserve these bits, to honor these bits
by putting them in a piece of art is as strong as
the pain that the process entails. In fact, it seems
to be the . . . only way to heal that pain, to hold
and cherish that pain. (And because pain is the
flip side of love, to cherish that love.)
Cherish is defined in the dictionary as: “To hold
dear, to feel or show love for; to take good care of, to
protect, to cling to the idea or feeling of.” Putting
these ashes in a box in a sculpture is cherishing them.
It allows us to cling to our feelings and memories and
thereby cherishes them as well.
Note again the theme of transitional object: the
ashes in the box stand for feelings toward the love
object. Note also the container for a dialectic. The
thought of putting the ashes in the sculpture makes me
“feel both nauseous and good at the same time.” I
remember seeing reliquaries in Italian churches as a
child and being perplexed and fascinated. Toes in a
gold box? Gruesome and beautiful. This sculpture
contains both gruesome and beautiful and makes pos-
sible their integration as well as that of pain and love.
It is this capacity to integrate that can bring about
transformation, the next theme.
Art is a Means of Transformation
During my journey of making the sculpture, sev-
eral kinds of transformations were revealed that are
not unlike those in Homer. In the Odyssey, men
change in both appearance and behavior: some into
animals and back. Odysseus appears more handsome
and godlike with Athena’s transformation of Nausi-
caa’s gaze. Odysseus’ appearance is changed into a
beggar and back into a mightier version of himself.
The halls of Odysseus’ palace are transformed by the
glow of Athena’s lantern into a shimmering space that
tells Telemachus that they are in the presence of the
gods. Telemachus himself is transformed from an in-
timidated boy into a brave man. In the sculpture/life
journey I discovered similar transformations of ob-
jects (in appearance and meaning), space (into sacred
space) and self.
First, boxes or the process of being boxed can
transform contents. The most obvious way is by fram-
ing in three dimensions or setting the contents apart
from the surrounding space. We wonder why these
things are set apart and/or assume that they have some
meaning or special significance. Both Langer (1953)
writing about art, and Milner (in Siegelman, 1990)
writing about the therapeutic frame, agree that the
frame marks the entry to a universe of special mean-
ing and symbol: “Whenever we see or experience a
frame we are subliminally given the message ‘wel-
come to symbol land”’ (Siegelman, 1990, p. 184).
The very fact of being boxed shows us that the
contents are important to someone in some way:
whatever is inside is being protected, collected, saved.
I remember collecting pink eraser rubbings or crumbs
in a little glass vial in a cigar box in the fifth grade.
Collecting, amassing and boxing these crumbs made
them interesting, far removed in meaning from the
refuse that they actually were. The crumbs were trans-
formed into a very special sort of dust and that dust
had a different character when seen and felt in quan-
tity. All of a sudden one paid attention to the act of
erasing as well. One had respect for how much writ-
ing and then how much careful erasing it would take
to fill a cigar box-how much of trying to get things
right; it calls to mind the work of artist Ann Hamilton,
who patiently and obsessively burns out writing in
books or winds it up in balls like yarn. Both the artifacts
and the act become important by being placed in the
container of the gallery, with all of its connotations.
Different containers carry different meanings. As
artist Robert Morris has said, “Boxes literally ema-
nate usages and histories” (Mogelon & Laliberte,
1974, p. 32). Depending upon the kind of box-how
sturdy, how open or closed, locked or unlocked, how
elaborate, transparent or opaque, for example-we
make assumptions about and have associations to the
contents. Looking at form and content, some associa-
tions to my sculpture as container have already been
mentioned: tomb, vitrine, window display, reliquary.
The top of the piece, the “display case,” contains
various bits and pieces of glass and plastic, beads,
buttons, sequins, flower petals. In making this part of
the piece, I traveled back to childhood and enjoyed
with a child’s delight the discovery and the collecting
of all these bits, which seem transmuted by inclusion
in the lighted case. The pieces of broken glass oma-
ments and the cheap iridescent bits of molded plastic
 ART IN BOXES
become treasures, lovely fairy jewels. I wanted the top
case to be enticing to a child or to anyone willing to
look with the eyes of a child.
In this top part of the piece there seem to be two
aspects to the process of transformation. First, the box
is a clear display case with its own special properties
and associations. From my journal:
A museum vitrine: The objects inside are being
saved and collected for society. It is not the box
of the attic or garage. Not a personal collection
of marbles in a cigar box, but something of
importance for everyone. A closed, protected,
but transparent space. A box that says, “Look
but don’t touch, don’t even put your fingers on
the glass.” A box that says, “These objects are
important and valuable.”
This kind of box brings with it associations to ar-
tifacts from ancient civilizations as well as to fragile
nature specimens like the delicate, ephemeral, flower
petals. These things should only be looked at, not
handled, even if you long to pick them up. The other
association is to a window display, like the one in my
dream. “A window display, an even larger clear pro-
tected space. Behind the glass is another world. Think
of a Christmas display with angel hair and lights and
baubles. Press your nose against the glass; it looks
prettier, more inviting than life.” Thus, the nature of
this box presupposes an importance or meaning.
Second, the willingness to gaze with the eyes of a
child-or equally a dreamer, a poet or an artist-
affects the beauty of the objects the way Athena af-
fected the gaze of the young Nausicaa, who beholds
the stranded scruffy Odysseus and finds him beauti-
ful. The objects in the case become talismans, objects
of magic, with power to ward off evil, like the objects
in Lucas Samaras’ boxes (Celant, 1988). I included
pieces I have saved since childhood-favorite but-
tons, my mother’s crystal beads, a “magic wand”
made of a glass drop from a chandelier. They take on
a significance described by Celant in his essay on
Samaras: they become “objects of a personal and col-
lective faith, touched by a magical and thaumaturgical
power” (1988). From my journal: “If all these ma-
terials were scattered on the floor, they might be
pretty, even intriguing, but the box creates a sacred
space of imagination, metaphor.”
In the bottom of the piece, the twigs are trans-
formed and given different meaning by being placed
in the container of the body. And, because art can
245
contain paradox, they can be twigs and bones and
metaphor at the same time, just as the pieces in the top
are both mere pieces of glass and talismans. Eliade
(1959) wrote about the sacred:
By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes
something else, yet it continues to remain itself;
for it continues to participate in its surrounding
cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone
. . . But for those to whom a stone reveals itself
as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted
into a supernatural reality. (1959, p. 12)
The next kind of transformation, into sacred space,
comes from the glow of Athena’s lamp or, in this
sculpture, from the glow of the pink lights. Lighting
and music were mentioned earlier as the means to
creating a sacred or transcendent space. The space to
be transformed is first delineated or framed (i.e., a
circle, a temple, a vessel), then lighting is added. In
ancient times perhaps sacred lighting was the sun or
moon shining through an opening in the contained
space. In the sculpture the lights are little Christmas
lights that carry their own associations to a special
time and “magical” experience for children. The
lights are, in fact, the same kind of pink lights that
were on Zack’s tiny Christmas tree by his deathbed. I
wrote about the lights in my journal after I finished
the top:
Lighting: Enhances the transformation from
stuff into magic and into a sacred space. The top
softens and glows. The lights shine on and for
the figure, focus attention away from darkness
and death toward light, spirit, heaven. . I
think, “look into the pink light, dying one. I
can’t save you but I will give you all the love
and light that I have.”
The next line from that journal entry introduces the
last transformation, that of self:
If the figure is Zack, then I am the Artist as
Alchemist, trying to transform a moment of his
life. If the figure is also the artist, I am trying to
transform my own life, as I indeed did as a child
by escaping into imagination.
I have already quoted journal entries that dealt with
the extreme emotions, even anguish, that I went
through in the making of this sculpture. But by delv-
246 ANNA BELLE KAUFMAN
ing into the pain and proceeding with the work, I felt
relieved and transformed. In alchemical fashion,
through the process of taking painful feelings and
using them to create, the ashes were transmuted into
“gold’‘-into new meaning, into life. The intense
“heat” of transformation that Jung (Siegelman, 1990)
described was held in a sacred space, in a containing
vessel of the artwork. The art process was alchemy/
therapy. As previously mentioned, Jung talked about
the dialectics of the psyche and said that, in therapy,
the patient joins the disowned and opposite parts of
herself. This integration is transformational and
makes available more life energy. In my sculpture, the
ashes in the figure’s heart are actually in my heart.
I’m the one who feels that her heart cavity has been
ripped open and exposed. The dialectic is ultimately
my own internal split, and the joining of these two
parts in one box is ultimately transformation of my
self.
This journey started for me in a dream, with raw
material straight from the unconscious. The final por-
tion and the final transformation of self was the writ-
ing of the study. The written piece provides yet an-
other, outermost, container with its own properties.
The intellectual exercise of analyzing data provides
distance from the emotional experience of the dream
and the sculpture. It provides another “in-between”
space: between parts of my own psyche, making room
for an observing ego; and between myself and raw
feeling, and the outside world. The experience in this
outer container does not have the same scorching heat
of the first transformation. It is bathed in the coolness
of the intellect and is a safe place where meaning can
be created and my experience processed. (I found that
it was easier to extract themes from my journal by
referring to myself as “the artist,” creating distance
by pretending that I was reading the journal of some-
one else.) This outer container of intellectual analysis
is the bridge between the personal experience con-
tained in the artwork and the community, a translation
of a private language into that of the world. It feels
like the outermost doll of the Matrushka, but, in fact,
there are more containers: the art therapy department,
the university library, the art therapy community, and
so on.
Creation of Infinity
We take the infinity of containers within containers
with us into a discussion of this last theme. It is an-
other paradox: in the very creation of boundaries or
contained space, it is possible to permeate, to create
boundless space. (This theme has already been men-
tioned above.) The places where I discovered the “in-
finities” are in miniature or interiority, in imagina-
tion, first in play and later through art, and in sacred
space. I might now add that the container of art
therapy may be another place, where the infinity of
the unconscious is accessed. The infinities of minia-
ture enclosure are described above in the work of
Bachelard. Stewart wrote about the “infinitely pro-
found interiority” of a house within a house-the
dollhouse-that holds “an absolute manipulation of
time and space . . the aptest analogy is the locket or
the secret recesses of the heart: center within center,
within within within” (1984, p. 61).
Or, again in Bachelard: “ ‘We shall never reach
the bottom of the casket.’ The infinite quality of the
intimate dimension could not be better expressed”
(1964, p. 86). Bachelard wrote about a poet imagining
a world of miniature lords and ladies who dance in
front of the mirrors in a closed marquetry box: “The
poet has given concrete form to a very general psy-
chological theme, namely, that there will always be
more things in a closed, than in an open box. To verify
images kills them, and it is always a more enriching
experience to imagine than to experience” (1964, p. 88).
My own discovery of infinity came in creating and
writing about the “display case” part of the sculpture.
I realized that I wanted to totally enclose the contents,
to make them accessible only via sight and imagina-
tion. From the journal:
It is the infinite of the imagination that I am
after here. Its very enclosure allows only imagi-
nation to enter: lights, cloudlike gauze, glittery
treasures. Where are we when we enter this
case? We have entered another realm where
imagination and poetry reign. The plastic
baubles become fairy treasures, the net becomes
a cloud. It is the world of the poet, the artist, that
Bachelard loves. . . Perhaps to some, the top
will just be a plastic box with fabric and junk in
it. But to those who allow themselves to see as
a child or a poet or an artist does, it should
become magical.
It is this gaze of the child/dreamer/artist/poet that I
mentioned earlier that enables both transformation
and a voyage to infinity. The last infinity, sacred
space, has been mentioned in the earlier discussion of
the light and music. It is another space that is
 ART IN BOXES 247

bounded, whose threshold stands between two worlds, References

those of earth and heaven, It is in the creation of
sacred space that we can contact the numinous, the Bachelard, G. (1964). The poetics of space. (Jolas, M., Trans.)
possibility of transcendence and voyage to infinity. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Celant, G. (1988). Lucas Sumaras. (Neugroschel, J., Trans.) New
York: The Pace Gallery. (Note: This catalogue has no page
Conclusion
numbers)
This research was based on a deeply felt and often Dreifuss-Kattan, E. (1990). Cancer stories: Creativity and self re-
pair. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
painful work of art whose impetus for creation stems
Douglas, B., & Moustakas, C. (1985). Heuristic inquiry: The inter-
from the worst loss that a mother can suffer: the loss
nal search to know. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3),
of a child. The creation and exploration of the box led 39-55.
me through confrontations with separateness and Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane-The nature of
losses throughout the span of the human life cycle. It religion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
is inevitable that my results dwell on the relationship Jacobi, J. (1980). The psychology of C. G. Jung. London: Routledge
of art and suffering. Suffering is also the impetus for & Kegan Paul.
therapy. Art therapist Levine wrote: Jung, C. G. (1976). Collected works. New York: Pantheon Books.
Junge, M. (1985). The book about daddy dying. A preventive art
The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering therapy technique to help families deal with the death of a
family member. Art Therapy, March, 4-10.
but to give voice to it, to find a form in which it
Langer, S. K. (1953). Feeling and form-A theory of art. New
can be expressed. Expression is itself transfor-
York: Scribner’s.
mation. This is the message that art brings. The
Levine, S. K. (1992). Poiesis: The language of the psychology and
therapist then would be a therapist of the soul, the speech of the soul. Toronto, Canada: Palmerston Press.
working with sufferers to enable them to find Mallarme, S. (1964). In G. Bachelard, The poetics of space (p. 85).
the proper container for their pain, the form in Boston, MA: Beacon. (Original work published 1866)
which it would be embodied. (1992, p. 14) Mogelon, A., & Laliberte, N. (1974). Art in boxes. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold.
Levine (1992) discussed Rilke’s Orpheus, the artist Riley, S. (1993). Illustrating the family story: Art therapy, a lens for
whose songs can contain both beauty and horror (as viewing the family’s reality. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 20,
253-264.
does the box of my sculpture), an artist who can bind
together praise and lament because he has descended Rutter, J. (1985). Requiem, with the Cambridge Singers, the City of
London Sinfonia, conducted by Rutter, Collegium Records,
into the realm of the dead. Like Orpheus following his
COLCD 103.
beloved Eurydice, I would have liked to follow my
Siegelman, E. (1990). Metaphors of the therapeutic encounter.
son into the underworld and bring him back. As a Journal of Analytical Psychology, 35(2), 175-191.
mother, I was unable to. But as an artist/Orpheus, I Stewart, S. (1984). On longing: Narratives of the miniature, the
was able to combine the realm of the dead and the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection. Baltimore, MD: Johns
creative world of the living in the creation of Dona Hopkins University Press.
Eis Requiem, with the goal of ultimate healing. Winnicott, D. (197 1). Playing and reality. London: Routledge.